Local people make travel meaningful

Neither my seven years of Spanish language classes nor my Polish training at one of Europe’s top universities could help me now. The woman at the ticket window of Budapest’s Nuygati Station was ready to sell me a ticket, and I could only massacre my request as I tried to read in Hungarian the notes I had written the night before. Moments later, tickets that I couldn’t read in hand, I boarded the train. My destination was a rural Hungarian town where I was positive I would be the first American to take a walk along its lakeshore. There was a reason I agreed to this rather unorthodox vacation. At the end of the line, my friend Péter and his homemade ice cream would be waiting for me.